Arriving in South America

This morning I woke up around 4:45AM to get ready to arrive at Miami International Airport around 5:30AM. I checked in and checked my bag with Aerolineas Argentinas. I was nervous about checking my bag, worried about it getting lost or damaged (the kind of things you always hear about, but hope never happen to you), as well as getting to the gate on time because this is my first international trip. After passing through security I met with the rest of the AUIP group at the gate and anxiously waited for the flight to begin boarding. We boarded the plane around 8:00AM; the plane was bigger than any I had ever been on before. We took off around 8:45AM for a flight that took about 8 hours.

We arrived in Buenos Aires around 7PM; the 8 hours did not feel nearly as long or tedious as I had anticipated. Before claiming our bags we had to go through customs (bring on the first interaction in a Spanish speaking country… for someone who doesn’t speak Spanish). The customs workers at the kiosk didn’t look very happy about a group of American students coming through, but they appeared to understand the general lack of Spanish language skills among us. That night we stayed at a Holiday Inn, which was much fancier than any Holiday Inn I have ever seen in the states, with a large grand piano in the lobby, a steak house, and an large outdoor infinity edge pool.

After finding our rooms the group came together for dinner at the bar (since us college students probably cannot afford a steak house), but it ended up being quite a struggle. The servers had a hard time understanding us because they spoke very little English, which also meant we had a difficult time understanding them because most of us had absolutely no Spanish language skills whatsoever. One thing that became painfully obvious is that instead of just saying that i should learn Spanish before the trip, i should have actually done it. Now, i recommend to anyone travelling abroad, try to learn the basics of the local language before arriving. Anyway, after much confusion and a bit of waiting, we ate and returned to our rooms for the night and prepared to wake up early once again to catch our flight to Ushuaia( YAY!).

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